September 9 2011

If only it was as easy as saying “resistance is futile”
[Star Trek fans will be familiar with this
phrase]. This is the group of change recipients I personally
find the most challenging to work with, and that phrase is just
about the epitome of describing how these people frustrate me - they
don’t want to work with you
on anything about the change event!

So how can I best and politely describe these people? They are
the silent weights that won’t move. Often they have been in a
comfortable working situation for many years and like it just the
way it is! They can be vocal, but I often find these are the people
who say little when discussing change, and sit there in stony
silence, staring either straight at you with a look that says “heard
it all before”, “this will never work” of “here we go again” of they
just stare at the floor. Their main goal is to try and divorce
themselves from proceedings and ignore what is happening, presumably
on the futile hope that it will go away!

The most challenging element of working with resistors is that
they can sap the energy out of the room. They are not expending any
energy, and I have often found them to act like some form of black
hole, sucking the life force from the room. This is why any meeting
arranged, needs to have a mix of change types in it. A room full of
resistors and you may well end up needing counselling and
psychiatric treatment! Well perhaps that’s a little extreme, but I
do think that they can negate any positive energy in a room very
quickly if not managed.

Now that brings us to the challenge, how to manage these people
well? In my experience, you need to expend quite a bit of personal
energy trying to get some movement in opinion from these people. I
referred to them as weights, and I do see them that way - heavy
burdens that need a focussed push to move into another arena.
However, when you have moved them, fortunately they tend to stay
there.

Tactics to employ for getting the resistor to move include, one
to one discussions about their value to the business, organization
etc. You need to stroke a bit of ego and convince them of their
value. Then you need to show them how much they give to the
business, how much it depends on them and then move into the sphere
of depending on them for the future – including this change. I have
found that competency in the work plays a big part for these people,
so I also tend to push on wanting to stay knowledgeable, effective,
performing, etc. and that can only be achieved by moving on to the
new way of doing things – that works better with process and system
changes best.

If you are considering organizational changes such as
restructures and redefining roles, the only success I have had with
these people involved showing how they will have the same sphere of
influence and cultural position after the change as they had before.
I wouldn’t even try and make it more, in case they see it as a way
of burdening them with more work for no reward.As a final point, the only way I have ever got them to
communicate freely as either been through writing or completing
online requests – where they can provide anonymous information, or
once I had a moment of playing devil’s advocate and challenge a few
resistors on a team to get on board the ship before it sails without
them, and then they will be left behind for ever. IT was perhaps a
little harsh but it did get a reaction that I was able to use
through continuing the metaphor and using roles and places on board
a ship to bring them on board!

Generally I find about 40% of the workforce are in this category.
Unfortunately, I would say that those working in public service and
government officialdom, tend to have a higher proportion maybe over50%, and that is to the detriment of the acceptors. Whether
this is a reflection of longer stable careers that they are
protective of or just bureaucracy filtering through to the people
culture, I honestly don’t know. However,
any work you may do with public service institutions will need more
effort because of this high proportion.

There is one final word of caution I would give. When working
with resistors, there is the hope and desire to move them towards
being acceptors, but there is also the chance they may move towards
saboteur territory. I’ll be talking about saboteurs in the next
posting and will be revisiting these change recipient types again in
the future to see the movement between them.